Oil is nasty stuff. Not coconut oil or olive oil, of course. I am talking about petroleum – crude oil, light sweet oil (sounds tasty, but not), Brent crude, and so on. I just read on a travel page that guests at an Azerbaijani hotel bathe in the stuff, believing it to have therapeutic qualities. […]

World Press Freedom Day (May 3) came and went with barely a ripple in Jamaica. The Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) issued a statement, which addressed a current shopping list of concerns among local media practitioners. These concerns are by no means slight – an inadequate Access to Information, and the anachronistic Official Secrets Act, […]

The Joyce Robinson Hall at the Jamaica Library Service (JLS) filled up steadily last Monday morning, as the 29th National Reading Competition got off the starting blocks. There were sponsors, students, educators, librarians, publishers, booksellers and representatives of the Kingston Book Festival – all ready to give the competition a good start. This year’s competition […]

Yesterday (March 22) was World Water Day. In years gone by, this might have seemed like just another of those “special days.” It might have been greeted with a shrug. Water? Why worry about water? Well, in 2015 I think we are taking water a lot more seriously. The Jamaican media love to call it “the […]